


got room for one more troubled soul

by EchoDoctor



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe- Pre-Canon Divergence, Can you still call it codependency if they're the same person now?, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 20:14:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10998168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoDoctor/pseuds/EchoDoctor
Summary: “He fell into his creation. Will Alphys end up the same way?” But there’s more than one way to fall- the real question is, who else is coming down with you? One way or another, Sans might be there to lend her a hand.





	1. Victims of circumstance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [purplebloodedmajesty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplebloodedmajesty/gifts).



> This fic is dedicated to Vanessa, for a wide variety of excellent reasons.

_And that’s the last one._

Dr. Alphys, official Royal Scientist to the court of the King of Monsters, closed the file she’d been reading and dropped it on top of the stack of folders on the desk in front of her with a relieved sigh. Ever since the Determination experiments had produced their sudden, unexpected results yesterday, the paperwork had piled up on her desk.

Who knew bringing back the dead involved so much bureaucracy?

Tests to confirm that the monsters in question were, in fact, the same people who had been brought into her lab, Fallen Down and far beyond recovery. Tests to confirm that they were in full possession of their cognitive faculties, and to check their memories. Families to contact, transportation home to arrange, explanations to give… all in all, a very busy workday.

Still, she couldn’t help but smile softly to herself as she leaned back in her chair, relaxing finally after a long, long shift. It may not have been what Asgore had asked her to accomplish, but it was certainly a very happy result all the same. Families reunited, their all-but-dead loved ones miraculously restored to full health- that was an achievement worthy of a Royal Scientist, accidental though it might have been.

Honestly, it would be a bit of a relief when the volunteers arrived to take everyone home in the morning. The DT experiment hadn’t been expected to run nearly this long, not as a preliminary test with half-dead subjects. Every day the bodies had refused to dust and dissolve had been another day of increasing nervousness, her anxiety sharply peaking every time she got another worried letter or angry phone call from a test subject’s surviving loved ones, demanding to know why she hadn’t yet returned their dust for a proper funeral, until she’d stopped even looking at both her digital and physical mailboxes. It had gotten to the point where she could practically _hear_ them breaking down her door for an answer…

She sat bolt upright at the realization that the pounding noise from the front of the lab wasn’t her imagination, but someone knocking increasingly desperately on her door.

Asgore didn’t have any official visits scheduled and Undyne, for all her boldness, was always good about remembering to call ahead if she wanted to come over. It could be a relative of one of the revived monsters, here to check up on them, but none of them were supposed to be there until tomorrow. Frowning, she reached over to her laptop and activated the feed from the front security camera.

As it turned out, her guess of ‘worried family’ had been both right and very, very wrong. She stared blankly at the screen for a long moment, unable to fully comprehend what she was seeing and then, as horror overcame her disbelief, lunged frantically for the front door’s automated unlock switch, the chair toppling over onto the floor behind her.

Papyrus was instantly recognizable, even if they’d only ever spoken to each other online.

And so was his older brother, even slumped in a frighteningly lifeless pile in the other skeleton’s arms.

 

_DT Experiment log, Entry 16:_

_Another test subject has been added to the experiment- an adult skeleton monster, resident of Snowdin Town, employed as a sentry. He was brought in by his younger brother, who claimed to have heard of the previous test subjects and their recovery from their family members, also residents of Snowdin. I examined him, and confirmed that he had in fact Fallen Down. This is corroborated by his brother’s statements, that he returned from work and found him._

_He found him lying there on the floor. He was just lying there, he wouldn’t move, he won’t get up._

_He won’t wake up._

_oh god i can’t do this_

_DT Experiment log, Entry 17:_

_Sans. This is Sans I’m talking about; Sans I’m looking at right now. There’s no point trying to pretend I’m a completely objective, professional scientist right now, it’s clearly not working. Maybe that’s not the kind of thing you should even be able to do, when one of your oldest friends is. Hurt._

_He’s not dying._

_Not here, not today. I can’t accept that. We haven’t spoken to each other in so long, and now it ends like this, after everything?_

_God, that stupid argument. I don’t even remember what I was so angry about. Not even angry, not really, I remember that much. Just tired and hurt, and hurting him too. The last thing I ever said to him can’t be something so cruel, it just can’t._

_I’m going to fix this. Fix him. It worked for the others, he’ll be back like nothing was ever wrong, just like the rest of them._

_DT Experiment log, Entry 18:_

_I’ve injected him successfully, at twice the dosage of the previous test subjects. They were brought to me right away, I think he might have been farther along before Papyrus found him, so the extra DT should make up the difference. It took up most of the remaining DT that I’d extracted and prepared for testing, there’s only one syringe left now._

_It’s going to be worth it._

_Most of the beds are already in use, at least until tomorrow morning, so I put him on my spare cot in the sample room instead of with the oth-_

The automatic display screen cut off midsentence as one blindly grasping hand smacked into the glass, claws digging into the corner of the frame to hold on. Alphys hauled herself up from her near-stumble, barely keeping her balance, and flung herself forward at a dead run. Her panic-fueled flight down the hallway continued, as she frantically looked for somewhere, anywhere she could hide.

Finally spotting an open door, she charged straight for it, slamming it behind her and turning the lock with shaking hands before collapsing on the floor. She leaned back against the cold metal, trembling with fear and exhaustion.

She could still hear them screaming from here.

Distantly, she registered another sound- someone laughing, a high-pitched and utterly mirthless breathless giggle that had gone well past ‘nervous’ and into ‘deranged’. It took a long, confused moment before she realized that it was coming from her, and she choked off the noise with a quiet sob.

Poor sweet old Mrs. Drake had been the first to show signs, mentioning an odd tension in her wings. Alphys had come in to check up on her, one last test before everyone checked out, only for the woman to dissolve in her hands, slipping through her fingers like something out of a horrible dream.

The others had followed only moments afterward.

Monsters twisting, melting, losing form- they had screamed and thrashed, falling gasping to the floor or launching bullets in all directions, with no coherent pattern. Alphys had stayed where she was, frantically clawing at the exam table in some mad impulse to try and reach someone who was no longer there, until one of the bullets had finally hit her and everything had just blanked out in a burst of sheer animal terror, sending her running without any thought to where she would go, just needing to get _away._

Where _could_ she go…?

This was all her fault- she hadn’t been careful enough, hadn’t tested them thoroughly enough and now innocent people, who had already suffered dearly, were dying in her lab. Bad enough that their families had lost them once, but now she’d taken them a second time, cruelly raising their hopes to shatter them again. What could she possibly do for them now? Where could she go where she wouldn’t somehow ruin all she touched beyond repair, where she wouldn’t be- rightfully- driven out for what she’d done.

Where could she go- and where had she _gone_?

Some sense of curiosity slowly made its way through the spiral of horrified misery her thoughts had been lost in, and she blinked the tears out of her eyes to try and clear her vision enough to see which room she’d wound up locking herself in. Right in front of her was a filing cabinet, so it wasn’t the decontamination shower, but she could hear a quiet mechanical whirring behind her… oh. The sample room.

She braced herself on the edge of the cabinet and carefully got to her feet, looking around to see if she’d knocked anything over during her hasty entrance. It all seemed to be in order, counters bare and samples neatly stored in the fridge… and then she saw the small cot in the corner, and her stomach dropped.

She pulled back the blanket slowly, afraid of what she might find, but Sans was still there, whole and untwisted, entirely unconscious.

Still dying, one way or another, without ever waking up enough to know.

It was only a matter of time. She’d injected him just like all the others, killing them without ever realizing the danger. At the dosage she had used, there was no chance he wouldn’t start to show the symptoms soon, no matter how peaceful he looked now. It was so _easy_ to forget how fragile he was when he was awake, impossible to picture someone so vividly alive as just a step away from death.

Now it was all she could see.

He made himself bigger than he was, with wide grins and loud laughter, but here he was so small, so unbearably vulnerable… and she’d already hurt him beyond recovery.

It finally hit her that there wasn’t going to be a way out of this. It wouldn’t all turn out to be a horrible dream, there wouldn’t be a last-minute reprieve from some higher power, no sudden stroke of genius that let her bring them all back and save the day. They were dead. He was dying. And she had nowhere to go.

…Or maybe there was still one way out, if she wanted it badly enough.

She opened the fridge and there it was, filed neatly on the top shelf in proper alphabetical order. She handled it with almost reverent care, as though the glass might suddenly shatter under her fingers, but it went in smoothly and was over in seconds. Almost as an afterthought she scribbled down some notes, date and time, on a piece of paper and then tucked it into the appropriate file.

Then Dr. Alphys, ex-Royal Scientist and last recorded test subject of the DT Experiment, put the empty syringe down on the counter, curled up in bed next to her best friend, and waited for the end.

 

Sans wasn’t sure where he was. It was a strange feeling- with as little health as he had, being aware of your surroundings was a basic survival instinct. After a lifetime of caution, he could keep track of an area almost unconsciously, never completely letting himself relax. But somehow, now, he knew he was very lost. There was no light to see by, and maybe even nothing to see, nothing at all but the deep, heavy darkness that pulled him further and further down into…

There was nothing. He was nothing. Some part of him knew he should care, but it was a faint and fading spark, and there was no part of him left that could remember why. Even if he had the energy to fight anymore, any reason to do so had already been lost. It was just the current, washing him away and taking him farther into the dark.

Until it wasn’t.

It started as a strange warmth, deep in the core of his soul, and spread to the rest of him as it grew until it was an unnamable and undeniable burning in the marrow of him, demanding that he would move, that he would return, that he would _wake up._

His eyesockets snapped open, the lights inside burning too hard, fever-bright. The burn was even stronger now, almost wiping out all other senses, but he could still just barely tell that he was lying on a small bed, and in front of him was…

“alphys?”

“S-Sans?”

She was shaking, sweating so heavily he almost didn’t notice the tears running down her face, looking like she didn’t know whether to smile or sob, or maybe was too far gone to even remember how. But she still reached for him, one trembling hand that he grabbed onto like a lifeline, clinging desperately to each other in the middle of their blinding delirium. Snowdin had been home for so long he’d almost forgotten any other, but even the deepest parts of Hotland had never burned like this.

He had never burned like this.

It didn’t seem possible that he could hold against it, that his bones hadn’t already cracked and charred, but it doubled and redoubled and still did not stop. He could see the same strain in her expression, feel it in the way her claws pressed harder into his knucklebones by the moment, both of them drawing closer and closer together until they were a single indecipherable tangle of desperate hope.

“I’m so s-sorry,” she choked out the words, gasping for breath and gripping so tightly she could no longer feel where the hard edges of bone dug into her scales. “M-my fault, all my f-fault, I did-didn’t know how to let go of y-you without a-a-a _fight_ , but I didn’t _know_ \- “

_He_ didn’t know, except he did somehow, it had been all his fault because she should have known, had never known, should have never picked up the syringe that he had never touched and walked over to his unconscious body on the cot, slipped the needle into her spine because she didn’t have enough flesh for a vein, skeleton monsters like him never did but of course the flesh was there, had always been under their scales…

He knew, now, because they knew.

They did not let go.

 

 

“No, I still haven’t heard anything, either.”

“YES, I HAD SUSPECTED AS MUCH. I HAVE CHECKED ALL OF THE SOCIAL MEDIA, AND THERE IS NONE OF HER ON ANY OF THEM AFTER LAST NIGHT? “

Undyne winced, only partially because the answer had been much too loud for so early in the morning.

The average monster vanishing completely from the UnderNet for over a day without warning was a little odd now that cell phones had gotten so commonplace and technologically advanced, but _Alphys_ staying logged out that long was unheard of- she might not always post something, but she would at least be reading other people’s stuff. Hell, half the reason _why_ modern phones had improved so rapidly was because she’d gotten frustrated at the shoddy cell service you got in Hotland and started reinventing them left and right.

“AT FIRST I THOUGHT SHE MIGHT SIMPLY BE INTIMIDATED BY TALKING TO THE GREAT PAPYRUS, BUT I ASKED ALL THE GUARD DOGS AND EVEN THEIR MOST FLUFFY, FRIENDLY INQUIRIES HAVE FAILED TO FIND THE DOCTOR. “

“Yeah, I went by her lab and the door’s still locked. There… didn’t sound like anyone was inside.” She shifted restlessly, leaning back against the pale stone wall and staring up into the golden light that filtered in from the windows, around the gilded stamp of the Delta Rune. Ever since Papyrus had raised the alarm on their missing scientist that morning- very early that morning- she’d been running around trying to find out what was going on, and the lack of sleep was starting to catch up to her.

At least, she told herself that the hollow, sinking feeling was lack of sleep. Royal Guardswomen, especially captains, didn’t freak out just because someone they cared about publicly claimed to have brought back the dead and then completely disappeared when it came time for her to deliver. No way, no how. That would be unprofessional.

“I AM NOT WORRIED, OF COURSE. I KNOW THAT EVERYONE IS FINE, SO WORRYING WOULD BE SILLY. I JUST… DON’T WANT HER TO OVERSLEEP. SANS ALWAYS DOES AND… AND I CAN’T LET HER PICK UP BAD HABITS.”

It was also pretty unprofessional to let people you cared about stay disappeared- and everyone had someone who cared about them. Papyrus was far and away the loudest, he’d come out full-volume the second his brother hadn’t been there for him to pick up from the lab, but everyone else with a family member in there was worried, too. She’d spent most of the time she wasn’t running around investigating talking to them, and promising them that it would be okay.

“BECAUSE BAD HABITS ARE EVEN WORSE HABITS WHEN YOU GET THEM FROM OTHER PEOPLE, YOU SEE. EVEN SANS WOULD NOT SLEEP IN NOW, BECAUSE HE’S COMING HOME TODAY. HE WOULD KNOW THAT IT IS TOO IMPORTANT.”

Royal guards kept their promises. Hearing that hesitant, almost frightened tone in Papyrus’ voice would have been enough motivation to keep this one even if they didn’t. The cold, creeping dread when neither of the skeleton brothers had shown up for their morning shift a couple days ago had been bad enough. Sans might be gone, but like hell she was losing anyone else.

“Right, that’s why I’m waiting to talk to Asgore. We’re gonna bust that door right down and find everybody, no sweat. …Well, probably some sweat? The lab’s in Hotland, after all. Just need to get the King’s permission first- people can’t just bust down official scientific doors without asking first.”

“OF COURSE, IT WOULD BE VERY RUDE.”

“Super rude.”

“SOCIETY WOULD CRUMBLE.”

“So I’m asking, and he’ll say yes, and it’ll be fine. Right?”

“RIGHT!”

“Awesome,” she grinned, and snapped the phone shut. From further down in the castle she could hear the tolling of the bells that signaled the King’s arrival, telling anyone waiting for an audience that he was ready and waiting.

Hopefully he’d slept better than she had. This was one hell of a way to start the morning.

 

King Asgore had not slept well enough for this. Possibly _no one_ under the entire mountain had slept well enough for this.

Although perhaps the Fallen had been sleeping soundly enough, before he had forced Alphys to disturb them.

That thought had been far too grim to be useful, and he forced himself to put it aside as he walked deeper into the lab. Something about this place always nagged at the back of his mind a bit, and he could never quite figure it out. It put him on edge at the best of times, and this was hardly that. All the impressive computer equipment, with its blank screens and tangled wires, was beyond him, but he didn’t need to be a scientist to examine one straight, brightly-lit hallway, and the conclusion was inescapable.

Alphys was nowhere to be found.

Nor were any of her test subjects- _his subjects_ still, if their resurrection was to be believed.

“Nothing up here,” Undyne called down from the top level. Her loud and unanswered calls for Alphys to come out the entire time they’d been searching could have told him that, but the confirmation felt heavy all the same. She leapt off the edge and landed firmly on her feet, boots thudding on the tile. “ _Damn_ , this makes no sense,” she growled, pacing restlessly back and forth, glaring sourly at the brightly patterned tile, the unlit screens, the little blue and yellow sign on the wall... “We’ve searched the entire place, how can there be nothing? It’s not like she can be in the shower or something.”

There was that nagging feeling again. The _entire_ place…? Wasn’t there something else, something he just _couldn’t grasp_ … No. There it was.

_Don’t question it, don’t push it any farther or it’ll slip out of reach, but hold what’s there now before it’s lost._

“Undyne,” she stopped pacing at the sound of his voice and looked over. Yes, it was there, right by her elbow. “Please move that bathroom sign and press the switch behind it.”

Somehow, neither of them were surprised to see it open up to an elevator. They rode it down in silence, and the dark lobby it led to nagged at his mind even worse until he tried to look at it straight-on and then it all slipped away in an instant, any answer he might have found gone.

A soft, blue glow dispelled some of the shadows, and he looked over to see Undyne holding one of her spears, standing resolutely in a guard position. He briefly considered suggesting a less aggressive-looking light source, but decided against it. Having a weapon ready was beginning to feel like a very tempting idea.

The growl that rang out from the hallway made it seem even more tempting. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Undyne’s shocked expression, before a huge white blur charged out of the darkness. She whirled around, spear gripped in one hand, and acted on well-trained instinct.

“Fetch!”

The spear sailed past him and embedded itself in the floor, and after it bounded the… dogs? His eyes widened as he took in the whole picture. It was all shoved together wrong, but a tail here, a paw there… he recognized all of them. Old guards, good dogs.

Alphys’ test subjects.

He met Undyne’s gaze and she nodded grimly. She’d seen it too, even before he had. The dripping white mass of dogs trotted back to her, spear held in their… well, in the general area of where a mouth might be. She scratched them behind the ears, or approximately the ear region. The deep, echoing noise was hard to call a bark, but it was clear they wanted to be followed.

Trusting in his old guards, Asgore let them lead him through the next room, full of broken glass and smashed furniture, turned the corner, and came to a stop.

They were taller put together than either of them had been apart, fully seven feet, made larger still by the lashing tail and bony spikes sweeping back from their long, muzzle-like skull. It was too dark to make out the exact golden yellow color that he knew their scales must be, but the white bones that wound in and over their skin like living armor were still pale enough to be visible, and the circles of gold light in their dark sockets glowed bright as they turned their head to focused on him.

The bony jaws trembled, opened. “I…”

They swayed, the eyelights blinked out, and Undyne caught them before they hit the ground.

 

It was dark. Everything around her as far as she could see was pitch-black, and even though it seemed solid she knew she was standing on an emptiness, too deep for her to ever reach the bottom. She wrapped her trembling arms around herself, needing the reassurance that she was still there.

That _anything_ was still there.

But as her terror slowly eased, she realized she could hear something in the distance. A vast and gentle noise, slow and steady, almost like a heartbeat. And somewhere deep down, she could feel it. A presence, resting softly against her own mind. Not intruding or retreating, as lost and hesitant as she was, but holding there with a single, absolute certainty that could carry her through the darkness: she was not alone.

She stepped forward, and saw.

 

“Sans?”

They blinked, golden eyelights flickering in and out, as their surroundings slowly swam into focus. A soft bed in a plain but comfortable stone-walled room. They had been here before, when they worked for… they worked for him, didn’t they? His sentry, among other jobs, but being Royal Scientist had taken up so much time they could barely think of anything else.

“Sans, or Alphys? And Alphys. I am sorry if I made this more confusing, I… have not spent enough time speaking to the others yet, it is hard to be sure how it all works.”

Well, one way or another, that was _definitely_ their king. Possibly a good point to start with, because between the confusing tangle of memories combining and colliding with each other and the way their thoughts- his thoughts? Her thoughts? - kept sliding over each other, at least one solid thing to stand on could come in handy.

_okay, we’ve got handy, now can we manage legs or are we going to fall over if we stand up again?_

_Dammit, Sans._

_sorry, you’re right. if we wanted leggy, we should have brought Mettaton, i could never pull off the whole look._

_Let’s just try… sitting, first. Maybe take it slow instead of trying to do it all at once._

_well hey, now we’re playing to my skillset. slow, i can do. no matter how much people yell at me to hurry up._

The mental conversation came easily- almost too much so. It was more of a challenge to _stop_ their thoughts from bleeding into each other, to actually think it out in words instead of just letting it all blend together in a single mind perfectly aware of both of them… at least until they didn’t match up on anything, at which point things spiraled out in opposite directions and it became a challenge to work together instead of pulling their shared control apart.

There didn’t seem to be any way to stop the awareness of each other’s thoughts- it was like being in a small, locked room with someone after both of you had lost any remaining brain-to-mouth filter. Anything that went through their minds the other one heard, even trying their hardest not to on both sides.

By mutual agreement, or maybe some sense of mercy, they had decided not to discuss the churning undercurrents of thought and emotion that had come through each part of their internal conversation.

The quiet, softly sad loop of ‘guilt-horror-shame-no not from you, it shouldn’t be-it’s my fault-no mine’ going back and forth had faded into background noise by now, still there under Sans’ tired ‘can’t fool someone in your head-try anyway the jokes are what you’ve got-keep pretending to be okay you’re enough of a burden already’ drone and Alphys’ ‘broke him-broke us-is the king here to sentence us-I almost hope so but I can’t take him with me’ anxiety-stricken gasping, his confusion at the feeling of flesh on their bones, her sudden stab of guilt at Mettaton’s name.    

The decision to push themselves up and sit up in the bed so they could face Asgore appeared, as far as they could tell, to come from both of them, which was probably why they managed it with only a minimum of difficulty from their shaking hands.

“Ihry pld nd- “ Talking, as it turned out, was somewhat more difficult. The sound of their own voice was bizarre enough all by itself- the overall effect was something like anywhere from two to five people talking all at once, in perfect unison, a strange and unearthly choir. Asgore smiled reassuringly, and spelled out his greeting again in sign language, which they replied to gratefully. Neither of them was entirely sure where they’d picked up that skill, but it certainly felt easier than talking right now.

Slowly and patiently, over the course of the next fifteen minutes, they used a mixture of sign language and short, careful verbal sentences to try and get used to this new way of speech. Their voice could actually be rather pleasant, it seemed, deep and resonant with unusual harmonics, but when they were upset it went in all directions and wound up as a deeply unsettling discord.

It was difficult not be upset at the moment, but eventually they made it to the point where they could ask their most pressing questions out loud.

“Others. From the lab? How are they.”

Asgore looked at them solemnly, his expression sympathetic, but still too understanding to be truly called pity. “Much like you, as far as anyone has been able to tell. Some better, some worse, but overall everyone who was… merged? They seem to be stable, and harmless. Frightened and confused, yes, but we’ve been able to work out at least some communication with all of them, and their families’ visits have been helping. The main problem seems to be when one person doesn’t agree with the others, but they… can’t be separated.”

“Amalgamy.”

“Ah. Yes, that would be a word for it. Mostly, they seem to get… stuck, until everyone can resolve the conflict. It was why I was trying to talk to both of you, in case there was something one of you needed to say. Not that both of you can’t talk at the same time, if you want.”

“All heard enough, enough from me. By now.”

“On that,” he answered gently. “I’m afraid _we_ must disagree. Your notes have been invaluable. We didn’t understand all of them, and I kept back the parts that were classified information, but they’ve helped a lot. Unless the situation- or the… Amalgamates themselves- destabilizes in the next few days, everyone will be going home with their families. We have you to thank for that.”

“I took them _away_ from their families.”

“No,” the weight of his gaze was heavy, but they did not look away. “I did. You acted on my orders, for my goals, and had no reason to believe this would happen. You are not at fault.”

“Not my goal, still my fault. I broke it all and didn’t fix it, I ran, I _ran_. You saw the files, saw the note? Last one. Classified?”

“…Yes. I felt that it was a… private matter. The circumstances behind your own condition, at least in the case of Dr. Alphys, have not been revealed to anyone outside this room. Although Undyne may suspect.”

They both flinched at that, but said nothing. After a moment, Asgore continued speaking.

“I am your king, and theirs, and I have failed all of you. For that, I am deeply sorry. The least I can do with this second chance is not fail you again.”

He bowed his head, shoulders slumping, then looked up in surprise at the feeling of another hand covering his, glimmering scales and delicate claws of sharpened bone resting lightly on top of the dense, white fur.

“Was my duty, too. Think I can’t now, but… still here. Can be here for you, I know.” Their sharp-toothed jaws didn’t quite stretch the right way for a smile, but they made a valiant effort. “Phone works. Can still text me.”

Very gently, the king gave his subjects a hug.  

 

 

The next couple days were an exercise in quiet frustration, but there was at least enough time to _be_ frustrated, and to slowly work things out without anyone asking more of them beyond ‘would you like to borrow some clothes’ or ‘do you think you need help eating’, the answers to which had been ‘yes, giant sweatpants are probably still better than the shredded remains of a lab coat’ and ‘no, I think I can get through this without stabbing myself with a fork, thanks’, respectively.

(They’d given them a spoon, anyway.)

In general, Sans seemed content to be the more passive of the two, bowing almost entirely to whichever option Alphys preferred and letting her direct the majority of the actions they took, only providing support to achieve her chosen goals.

It was a relief to focus for a while on simple, direct problems like relearning how to walk or write without getting too much in each other’s way, and to stay away from the more frightening questions lingering in the back of their head as much as they could manage.

They’d discovered it was harder to deal with those, in a way, than it was the physical aspects of their condition: both of them defaulted to self-loathing, which got tripped up on the fact that neither of them loathed _each other._

Maybe it would have been mildly embarrassing to admit how much they cared for each other, still, after having been estranged so long, but it wasn’t as though you could hide what you felt from someone in your own head because it was also _their_ own head, albeit suddenly much more spiky and bone-covered.

Compared to the sheer relentless awkwardness of having every stray thought or bad memory go throw someone else’s mind the second it occurred, or the simple fact that they’d had to abandon physical modesty between each other for the foreseeable future, having your best friend know that somewhere inside the fucked-up tangle of complicated emotions you really did love them was a lot less uncomfortable.

The trouble was that at this point it was almost impossible to separate what they felt about themselves from what they felt about each other.

From Sans’ point of view he was a weak and worthless burden, who’d dragged Alphys down with him when he’d finally given in and was now inflicting himself constantly on someone who’d already suffered more than enough because of his actions, all because he hadn’t been able to just hold on longer like a decent monster.

But he did not and _could not_ hold the same contempt for Alphys, who he knew was brilliant and inspiring, an amazing woman who had only been undone by sheer random chance, and couldn’t be blamed for Determination doing something that _no one_ had ever anticipated.

Which was impossible to reconcile with what Alphys herself knew, which was that she was a worthless, lying failure whose fraud had finally come back to punish her in a way that had taken a dozen innocent victims down with her, including a kindhearted friend who she’d left to suffer alone for reasons that still hurt both of them to look at too closely.

They could never settle completely into one mindset for too long without things feeling too wrong for the other and flipping it all around, only for it all to repeat itself again.

They couldn’t hate themselves without also hating each other, and the last thing either of them wanted to do was cause the other one any more pain.

It was like being bound together with a rope of thorns- they wanted badly to be free of it, but any attempt to struggle out didn’t only damage them, it also dragged the sharp points against the other, and they were too tightly wound together to move without wounding them both.

By the end of the second day they’d mostly let the whole matter go, not out of any resolution to their mutual guilt, but just out of sheer desire to stop making things any worse.

At least until they inevitably wound up seeing something that reminded them of it all again.

Like seeing the other Amalgamates, as they walked down the hallway to the atrium that had been temporarily repurposed as an examination room. None of them seemed to react beyond the occasional nod or wave- some more coordinated or comprehensible than others- but behind a polite smile they couldn’t help but cringe back guiltily.

It was hard to believe that they didn’t hate her for doing this to them- Alphys had enough trouble knowing that Sans didn’t, and she literally couldn’t dispute that one. Then again, maybe they were just too tired and confused to bother. Hate, they knew, was a lot of effort to hold onto, and _everything_ was a lot of effort right now.

Still, after a careful examination, the physician- a calm, sensible sphinx woman they thought they recognized dimly from a long-ago magiobiology class in sophomore year of college- had pronounced them in good health, as much as anything could be understood about the health of an Amalgamate just yet. They were relatively easy to examine, as the whole group went: they didn’t seem to be partially-but-perpetually melting like Endogeny or So Cold, though they did sweat a similarly strange liquid substance whenever exerting themselves.

The other doctor had pronounced the stuff unusual but apparently nontoxic, and given what had happened the _last_ time they’d thought they could stray out of their preferred field and into biology, they were willing to take her word for it.

They didn’t seem to share Reaper Bird and the Memoryheads’ tendency towards mild physical impossibilities, either, although some of the bony covering that wound around and into their scaly body did seem to be coming out at angles that the laws of physics wouldn’t normally permit, given where they’d originally gone in.

As for the less physical exams, they’d been pronounced of sound, if not necessarily entirely _stable_ , minds. At least enough to given their own checkout paperwork, to determine where and how they wanted to go from here.

‘Where’ seemed to have only one logical answer: Alphys had no living family, and no real home outside the lab that was no longer hers, having added to the forms her official resignation as Royal Scientist. By contrast, the near-desperate need to see Papyrus again was one of the strongest things Sans had felt since they’d woken up- like homesickness, but less for the location itself and more for the person who made the house you lived in the home it was in the first place.

About the only thing that had stopped them from teleporting straight there had been the desire to avoid frightening him and the worry over whether their condition was contagious.

The latter fear had been laid largely to rest for now, and the former had been pushed aside by a brief but hopeful phone call, in which his sheer joy at hearing that they could come home soon had probably been faintly audible up on the surface.

_What_ , exactly, they were going to do now felt substantially less clear, but they could try to work that out at home in Snowdin. They had the time, now that they’d resigned, and money wasn’t a worry- Sans had been careful about saving money, just in case, and the job of Royal Scientist had come with both a decent salary that Alphys had spent relatively little of and, it had turned out, a fairly decent severance package.

(They had the sneaking suspicion that last one had more to do with Asgore’s own mercy than the actual job itself, but Alphys felt too awkward to bring it up and Sans wasn’t too proud to take charity.)

After much longer than either of them had ever wanted to spend doing paperwork, they finally came to the last of it, and put down the page on top of the stack only to have a moment of confusion when they attempted to sign it.

The end result was a scribble under the ‘preferred name here: _____________’ option that came out looking roughly like ‘Sanalphys’. There followed a brief moment of internal debate.

_We wrote that in pen, didn’t we._

_yup, all forty-seven pages of it._

_I feel like we could probably just live with the typo and move on with our lives. Mostly because I’d rather throw myself out the window than do it over again._

_same._

And that had, more or less, been that.

 

 

They’d spent more time with Asgore, talking quietly about gardening, or books, or cooking, in ways that meant talking carefully around the things that were too big to face directly and too delicate to touch, like what it meant to survive something you hadn’t thought you could, or how to face people you knew you’d failed.

It was hard to tell which of them it was helping, or how much, but it was something to start with, and they thought they could see a new kind of sympathy, or perhaps respect, when he looked at them now, some tension they hadn’t noticed relaxing at being known and understood.

They’d bowed to him, deeply, when they had finally been ready to leave. He had never been a king to insist on the formalities, but he’d seemed to understand the unspoken depth of emotion they had tried to put into the polite gesture, and had smiled softly when he wished them well.

Now they stood at the castle doors, waiting.

They were still just close enough to the barrier, here, for that faint bit of light that filtered through, one of the main attractions of the capital city. Distantly, off in the palace gardens, birds sang. It was going to be a beautiful morning.

As their brother rounded the corner and dashed right for them, beaming to match the sun, they finally began to let themselves believe that it might also be a _good_ morning, too.


	2. All roads lead to Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you might have noticed a certain change in fonts, now that I've figured out how to get it working properly. Feel free to click 'Hide Creator's Style' if you find them difficult to read, though.

Alphys had never exactly been _afraid_ of the dark.

It had been hard to explain the difference as a child, but even before she could fully articulate it she knew what she _meant_ \- it wasn’t the dark itself, it was what might be out there in it. She’d been nervous even back then, when all the responsibilities and failures weighing on her shoulders were just potentials she wanted to live up to someday instead of mistakes she’d already made.

The dark was _all_ potential, and that had made her more nervous than just about anything else. If you couldn’t see what was out there, then almost anything could be, and no matter how much she told herself there probably wasn’t much hidden in the dark corner by her bed, she could never be completely sure.

This darkness didn’t feel like that.

It felt like the darkness behind your eyelids, like she was curled up in bed asleep enough to be out of the world but awake enough to know it. And there might be something dangerous out there, but it was far enough away that the walls all around them were a solid shield against whatever it might be planning.

There was nothing in here but the two of them, and whatever they’d brought with them.

Somehow, she wasn’t as worried about that as she thought she should be. Maybe it was that she was less frightened of what was in Sans’ mind than her own- at this point, he’d probably only be an improvement, and everything that wasn’t his she at least had a lifetime’s experience with by now.

Or maybe it was just that the worst-case scenario had already happened to them both, and everything else felt kind of smaller by comparison. If he didn’t hate her for warping them into the Amalgamate that they were now, then he probably wouldn’t hate her for what came out of her mind.

They weren’t melded together right now. Instead, they stood facing each other, maybe a foot of distance between them, neither quite able to look the other one in the eyes- or eyesockets.

At least it only came from weariness and confusion, not from anger. What little anger she’d felt from Sans in the middle of that overwhelming storm at the start had been barely a candleflame to the bonfire she would have expected, and had blown out as quickly as any candle in a storm would.

That was the strangest part, maybe, _knowing_ that he didn’t hate her. Not just hoping it, or thinking it, but knowing for a fact because she felt what he did like it came from her own soul, and he did the same. She could still feel him even here, though it was less intense. A quiet but persistent flow of feelings, vague impressions.

Their thoughts didn’t bleed into each other completely like when they were…

“Awake,” she finally looked at him. “That’s the way we got here, isn’t it. We were awake, and then we weren’t, so we wound up here.”

“…yeah,” Sans admitted. “i think this might be what we do now instead of dreaming. never was a psych major, but you mix two minds together, they’ve got to have some way to process everything, right? think that’s supposed to be what sleep’s for.”

“When it’s not for desperately avoiding your responsibilities, anyway.”

“aw, see, you get me. i knew we were friends for a reason.”

“Are we still…?”

“i think you already know the answer to that one.”

“I know the answer, I just don’t understand it yet. How don’t you get that this is all my fault?”

He shrugged. “how don’t you get that it’s not?”

“Every way that matters.”

“maybe they don’t matter as much to me.”

“You mean that _you_ don’t matter as much to you! Don’t pretend that you’d be as calm about this if I’d hurt someone else.”

“you did hurt someone else, why the hell do you think you’re _here_?" 

They stared at each other for a long moment before they both broke out laughing. It wasn’t exactly the sanest noise she’d ever heard- or ever made- but it beat the hell out of crying, at least until the tears started too.

Judging by what she could feel through their link, Sans was even more surprised than she was when he reached over and grabbed her hand. She smiled through the tears and reached back to him before he could withdraw, matching his regret and confusion with her own tired but unbroken love. Her sudden, clinging hug threw them both off balance and they landed on the smooth, unseen floor of the dark space in a confused tangle of flailing limbs, before calming down enough to just hug back.

The deep, gentle wave of his own love came back over her, and the two of them settled back down on the floor of the vast, comforting darkness, and curled up together.

“I think we might end up having this argument a lot, before we get anywhere.”

“think we’ve got time to have it as much as we need. we’re real lucky like that.”

“Yeah. Yeah, we are.”

Slowly, comforted by the feeling of having a friend beside them, they drifted back into dreamless sleep.

At seven in the morning, Alphys’ phone alarm went off with a tinny rendition of the Mew Mew Kissy Cutie theme song, continuing for almost thirty seconds until a long, barbed tail lashed out and smacked it clean off the nightstand.

Satisfied by the lack of noise, the Amalgamate curled up under the covers and went back to sleep.

It wasn’t until almost ten that they were finally woken up properly by the sounds of breakfast being made and cheerful, if admittedly somewhat off-key, humming coming up from the kitchen downstairs. Unusually late for Papyrus to be getting started, but he’d probably had a pretty rough night yesterday, too.

They didn’t remember the phone until they nearly stepped on it getting out of bed. Looking at the smashed screen and cracked case with a wince, they suspected it might not have made matters much worse if they had.

_Have to remember there’s a… a spiky bone bit on the end of my tail, now. Can’t get careless hitting things with it._

_i think we might be stronger, too…_

_We’re definitely bigger, anyway, it would make sense._

Picking up the phone in one hand, they used the other to blindly rummage through the drawer of the nightstand for something that could be used as a makeshift screwdriver. Prying off the outer case, they could feel a deep sense of contentment welling up from Alphys’ soul- if the events of the last few days had proven anything, it was that biology in general wasn’t her field, but _this_ she understood.

This was clean, and clear, and simple.                                              

Sans yielded as much control over their hands as he could manage, and she spent a happy fifteen minutes repairing and remaking her damaged phone into an even better model, putting his willing donation of various pieces of junk scattered around the bedroom floor to good use.

If nothing else, the text-to-speech function she’d begun coding would probably be useful for both of them, for the times when their voice went in strange directions.

She tightened the last screw and pressed the power button. Her fanged grin as the screen lit up faded immediately at seeing the ‘missed text’ notification in the top corner.

Mettaton’s number.

_Oh God._

_guess i don’t have to tell him i’ll be missing my shift tomorrow?_

By wholehearted mutual agreement, they decided to deal with it later. Shoving the upgraded phone in the pocket of their sweatpants, they made their way carefully downstairs for breakfast.

“OH GOOD, YOU’RE UP! BY WHICH I MEAN YOU’RE DOWN, SINCE YOUR BEDROOM IS ON THE SECOND FLOOR. BUT NO ONE CAN FEEL DOWN AROUND THE GREAT PAPYRUS, SO COME EAT YOUR BREAKFAST.”

The tray of food was thrust at them so quickly they took it without thinking, muscle memory kicking in- even if the original owner of the memories had never actually had muscles.

On the plate was… well, it was a stack of things that were vaguely round, mostly brown, and covered in large amounts of syrup, so they felt reasonably confident in deciding that they’d probably just been handed pancakes, or at least something similar enough for most pancake-related necessities.

They obediently sat down and began carefully sawing off a chunk of the probably-pancakes, partially because they were actually hungry but mostly because the idea of disappointing Papyrus after he’d gone to that much effort felt viscerally horrifying.

He pulled up a chair and sat across the table from them, beaming proudly, and poured himself a tall glass of milk.

Honestly, they were pretty decent if you could avoid the burnt bits. Kind of a nice, nutty aftertaste. Alphys was still trying to work that one out, but Sans knew from years of experience that it was better to just keep eating and not ask too many questions.

Although even he had to admit the intent way Papyrus kept staring at them was new and worrying- as was the way he hastily looked away whenever they tried to meet his gaze.

Like he didn’t want to make them uncomfortable, by crossing a boundary… but also didn’t want to risk letting them out of his sight for a second longer than he had to, in case they suddenly disappeared. Like they’d leave him behind if he wasn’t very, very careful.

That was one of the inconvenient things about actually having an esophagus, Sans figured. You had to learn how to swallow past that sudden lump in your throat that came up whenever you thought too hard about something like that.

Conversation came and went in little fits and starts, neither of them quite willing to push hard enough to break the tension. Eventually, they carved their way through most of the pan-stack and pushed the plate away.

Papyrus stood up so quickly that he knocked over his chair, and brightly announced that he’d be washing the dishes today, snatching up the plate and flinging it into the sink so hard they heard something crack.

“Thanks for making breakfast. It was… amazing.”

“OH, I’M SO GLAD!” he beamed. “I’VE NEVER MADE OMELETS BEFORE, IT’S SO NICE WHEN A FIRST TRY COMES OUT WELL.”

… _how._

_yeah, see, this is why I told you not to ask._

“SPEAKING OF WASHING, THAT REMINDS ME- I DID THE LAUNDRY WHILE YOU WERE ASLEEP, SO YOU SHOULD GO LOOK THROUGH THE HAMPER TO MAKE SURE IT FITS.”

They blinked in confusion, and he smiled awkwardly before continuing on with redoubled enthusiasm.

“YES, WITH MY KEEN OBSERVATIONAL SKILLS, I NOTICED THAT YOU NOW ONLY HAD ONE FUNCTIONING OUTFIT, DUE TO YOUR SUDDEN MULTI-DIRECTIONAL GROWTH SPURT.”

Well, that was one way to look at it. Both people involved would, they knew, wear the same clothes for up to a week before finally reaching a high enough level of shame that they had to change into something clean.

(Sans had once made it to week number three before giving in, but he had the unfair advantage of completely lacking sweat glands.)

But even they had to admit that the idea of changing out of their government-provided t-shirt and sweatpants sounded fantastic right now.

Something about the prospect of spending the rest of your natural life in a tent-sized garment that had ‘Wrold ’ s Beast Gardener’ printed across the front by a manufacturer who apparently hadn’t cared about good kerning any more than they had about spelling could motivate even the most carelessly-dressed monster to reconsider.

“TO AVOID INCONVENIENCE, I PURCHASED SEVERAL ARTICLES OF CLOTHING THAT LOOKED PROMISING FOR YOU. ALSO, I LEFT A GIFT CARD FOR THE CAPITAL MALL IN YOUR MAILBOX, IN CASE YOU WISH TO PICK OUT YOUR OWN GARMENTS LATER.”

Strictly speaking, clothing wasn’t a requirement in most parts of the Underground unless you were in an area that was dangerous enough to mandate safety gear, but most monsters wore at least some, if only to display their sense of style.

Going completely nude wasn’t too odd in and of itself, but given that both of them had usually been dressed in public before getting combined, people would probably be concerned if they suddenly stopped. There were going to be enough rumors going around about them as it was.

Then again, they already knew that the Underground’s number one newscaster was following their story personally. Assuming he hadn’t made an employee call them instead…

The phone suddenly felt very heavy in their pocket. Thanking Papyrus again, they made a hasty withdrawal in the direction of the laundry hamper.

Overall, they had to admit he’d done a pretty good job finding them clothes. A pair of black jean shorts replaced the sweatpants to their considerable relief, and he’d somehow managed to locate a similar-looking but much larger blue hoodie, which Sans appreciated for the familiarity alone.

Tops had apparently proven slightly more confusing, because Papyrus appeared to have bought anything that could conceivably be applied to the average torso, up to and including the upper halves of several swimsuits, but Alphys had eventually managed to locate an acceptable sports bra and called it good.

Anyone who wanted something more formal, they decided with a sudden surge of confidence, could try coming back from the dead themselves and see how much they felt like dressing up fancy.

It faded almost immediately on turning to the pile of discarded clothing and going through the pockets of the sweatpants for their cell phone.

They sat quietly on the laundry pile for almost a full minute, unwilling to put the phone away but lacking the desire to open up the message and find exactly what Mettaton had to say.

Maybe they could put it back in the pocket of the sweatpants and let it ‘accidentally’ go through the wash cycle a couple times- oops, such a terrible mistake, can’t read that text now because the phone’s broken… except that Alphys was pretty sure she’d also waterproofed it when she’d upgraded it this morning, because after repairing some of Undyne’s old phones adding that feature was pretty much a habit.

Still, they were _borrowed_ sweatpants, maybe just leave the phone in the pocket even _longer_ and let it get mailed back to the castle when they shipped them back to Asgore… where he would inevitably notice the phone and helpfully attempt to return it to them, probably loudly and in public, where it would inevitably filter through the kingdom’s gossip network and get back to Mettaton. No. Dear angels, no.

Maybe they could just stay here forever and never deal with anything ever again. Curl up on the clean laundry pile and hoard it like the shittiest dragon in the world, never have to talk to anybody unless it was to hiss angrily at somebody trying to pull their clean socks out from the bottom of the pile. They could live there, Mettaton probably wouldn’t notice.

After all, given what she’d done to one of her other closest friends recently, he probably wasn’t going to want to be around her any time soon.

_you mean saving my life, and about a half-dozen other people while you were at it?_

_Sure. Let’s call it saving._

Still, the quiet sense of support helped. Taking a deep breath, they opened the message. It was surprisingly short and to the point:

“We need to talk, so get well soon. Love, MTT.”

Their sense of unease increased. He might not have called them in a while, but something about getting a text from Mettaton without a single heart sign, glittery gif, or overly-elaborate emoji felt deeply wrong.

He lived and breathed drama- inasmuch as a robot needed to breathe, anyway. They had once seen him reply to being handed a slice of dry toast with a speech so passionate that it should have won awards. Now something this big had happened, and he was barely reacting at all?

Then again, given how little Alphys had been responding to anyone lately, maybe he hadn’t thought it was worth the time.

Thinking of all they the things they’d been putting off lately, they shifted guiltily and pocketed the phone.

There was only so much of that they were prepared to deal with at once, but maybe they could start with one thing. After all, you couldn’t avoid someone you lived with, and they didn’t think they entirely wanted to, even if they could.

“Papyrus? Can we talk?”

They shifted uncomfortably on one end of the living room couch, momentarily grateful for the lumpy cushions providing a plausible excuse for their awkwardness. Papyrus sat on the other end, smiling bright and brittle.

It might have fooled someone who didn’t know him very well, but Sans had been there the day he’d been born and couldn’t help but see the way his younger brother had his hands so tightly folded to stop them from shaking, the too-rigid set of his shoulders, all the little things that made it very clear that Papyrus was just as uncomfortable as they were.

There was no easy way to start this conversation, was there? ‘Are you angry that I died’, ‘do you hate me for coming back’, ‘am I welcome here at all’… questions like that were not only hard to answer, they were heavy to ask.

Maybe they were looking at it from the wrong angle.

“So, is there anything you want to ask… either of us? It’s been, been a pretty weird week for everyone.”

Papyrus nodded slowly, and took a deep breath. “I… WOULD LIKE TO ASK SANS SOMETHING, PLEASE.”

“yeah?”

“HOW DO I HELP?”

They stared at him in mute incomprehension, caught utterly off guard.

“SANS, YOU WERE HURTING AND YOU DIDN’T TELL ME. I DIDN’T EVEN _KNOW_ ANYTHING FOR SURE _,_ I JUST WORRIED AND TRIED TO IGNORE IT BECAUSE YOU KEPT SAYING YOU WERE FINE EVERY TIME I ASKED.”

They cringed with guilt, knowing the accusation was entirely true. And while it might have been aimed at Sans, Alphys knew that particular flaw to be one she had shared with him long before their merger.

She’d been worried he would hate her, for taking his brother away, but Sans had feared… this.

This total lack of anger, the sadness and misplaced guilt and _disappointment_.

Hatred would have hurt, but this was worse.

Papyrus met their gaze directly, now, looking as miserable as they felt. “ALL I WANT IS TO KNOW HOW TO HELP, FOR YOU TO _TRUST ME_ TO HELP INSTEAD OF TRYING TO FOOL ME INTO THINKING NOTHING’S WRONG. AFTER ALL,” he smiled weakly, blinking back tears. “I TRUSTED _YOU_.”

“You probably shouldn’t,” slipped out before they could stop it.

“NO,” he shook his head. “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, I THINK: I TRUSTED YOU. AND I WAS _RIGHT_. I TRUSTED THAT YOU WOULD COME BACK TO US, THAT YOU WOULDN’T JUST LEAVE FOREVER. YOU WOULDN’T LEAVE ME BEHIND, NOT IF THERE WAS ANY WAY TO COME BACK. AND I TRUSTED DR. ALPHYS, TO FIND YOU A WAY TO MAKE IT HERE.”

…Dammit. Now _they_ were crying.

_He really does mean it, doesn’t he._

_yeah. you know something? i saw him grow up, was right there the day he was born. and i still don’t know how someone can be this good. he sure as fuck can’t have gotten it from me._

_Agree to disagree._

“Is it… is it okay to say I don’t know how? Because I swear I tried to figure it out, but I. Well. I never did get much right,” they offered quietly, weary but sincere. It wasn’t much, but after that they couldn’t offer him anything less than the truth.

Papyrus nodded solemnly. “I SEE. THEN I THINK THE QUESTION IS, CAN WE ALL FIGURE IT OUT TOGETHER? BECAUSE,” he held out a hand, an open offering, “EVEN THE GREAT PAPYRUS DOES NOT FIGHT ALL ALONE. WITH ALL OF US TOGETHER, WE WILL SURELY PREVAIL.”

They reached for him tentatively, not quite daring to hope…

“When, when you say all of us, do you mean… all _three_ …?”

“IF YOU WANT- THAT IS- I HAD ANOTHER QUESTION TO ASK!”

Papyrus looked deeply embarrassed, but nevertheless was intent to see this through. “SANS,” he gripped their right hand gently but firmly, “WILL ALWAYS BE MY BIG BROTHER. AND DR. ALPHYS,” he carefully took hold of their left hand, “HAS ALWAYS BEEN A GOOD FRIEND. NOW, IF THE TWO OF YOU,” he brought his hands together, clasping them around theirs, “AREN’T ALWAYS _TWO_ , DOES THAT MEAN… DOES IT, UM, MAKE _YOU_ …”

Alphys had been expecting bitterness. She’d been expecting coldness, the awkward feeling of knowing you were trapped somewhere there wasn’t a place for you, because he _had_ to take her in for the sake of his brother, even though she’d never been part of their home. She’d expected tolerance at best, maybe a kind of pity for someone who’d managed to mess her own life up this badly, but even that would be strained by the fact that she’d ruined _their_ lives along with it.

She hadn’t for a moment expected to hear:

“DO I HAVE AN OLDER SISTER NOW, TOO?”

_…Sans._

_i know._

_Sans this is the cutest thing that has ever happened to me._

_i know._

_How do I handle this. How do you handle this, he’s too adorable, I can’t cope with it._

_pretty sure you’re stuck getting adopted, Al. no escape. probably oughtta hug him now before one of us spontaneously combusts._

Alphys had gotten hugged more often in the last week, she was pretty sure, than she had in the entire previous year.

Fortunately, skeleton monsters didn’t need to breathe, so she didn’t have to worry about crushing the air out of her brother when she hugged him back.

As per, Sans helpfully informed her, the sibling code, both of them politely pretended the other one wasn’t still sniffling a little once they pulled apart. Papyrus discreetly wiped his eyesockets with his scarf.

“WELL,” he declared brightly, regaining his usual energy with only a very slight waver in his voice. “IT’S ALMOST DINNERTIME, AND I HAVEN’T STARTED COOKING YET. THIS CALLS FOR A TAKEOUT NIGHT! I SUPPOSE IT’S ONLY FAIR TO LET THE NEWEST PERSON PICK THE RESTAURANT.”

Sans made the suggestion, but the wicked grin came from both of them. “How about Grillby’s?”

Papyrus groaned theatrically. “TRAPPED BY MY OWN KINDNESS!”

“It’s a terrible burden to bear,” they nodded gravely.

“FINE, I’LL ALLOW IT _JUST THIS ONCE_ , SINCE THESE ARE SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES. BUT TOMORROW I’M MAKING YOU TWO SOMETHING HEALTHY!”

It still didn’t feel completely normal, as they fell into the rhythm of companionable bickering on the walk over.

But it felt like maybe they could figure out what normal was going to look like from now on, if they had enough time.

Of course, Alphys thought with a wince, that did depend on whether or not they survived throwing themselves directly into a crowded bar for their very first outing after coming home from the lab.

_heh. watch and learn, my introverted friend. watch and learn._

Somehow, the fact that she could feel Sans being almost as nervous as she was but refusing to care about it managed to split the difference between sweet and obnoxious.

Still, it seemed to be working.

There’d been a hush when they’d first walked in the door, one long, painfully tense moment when nobody knew what to say. Then he winked at the rabbit monster in the nearest booth and made a godawful joke about the love life of the guy sitting across from her, and the tension palpably deflated.

Same old Sans… more or less.

Mostly more.

The surprising thing was that Alphys found herself starting to have fun, too. At first it was mostly old in-jokes and well-worn conversations, things she needed his memories to follow, but as the topics shifted she found herself having more and more to add, and actually _being able_ to add it.

It was a tricky balancing act, but somewhere in between Sans’ lack of energy for anything, including social embarrassment, and Alphys’ constant nervous energy, they seemed to be able to find a point that averaged out somewhere actually… _sociable._

Even with the entire rest of the week, it was still in the running for the weirdest hour of her entire life.

Still, even Sans was starting to want a moment of peace and quiet after a while- he honestly did like people, on the rare occasions when he had the energy for them, but their new tag team method of socializing could only provide so much.

Grillby seemed to have their back, at least, judging by the way he discreetly unlocked the back door and gave them a quiet nod.

Thank God for bartender’s instincts.

They waited for the conversation to shift focus to other people, then quietly told Papyrus they were going to get some fresh air and slipped out while the others weren’t looking.

Closing their eyes, they leaned against the back wall with a sigh of relief.

When the door opened again a few minutes later, they looked over curiously.

And froze.

_Oh my God-_

“I needed to feel the wind,” she said softly. “In there… it’s so warm…”

_yeah, but out here-_

_-it’s So Cold._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised myself I wouldn't take more than a month to finish the next chapter, and I didn't. ...Barely.
> 
> It still counts.


End file.
